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Thursday, 23 January 2014

Tourist

Maria woke up in her hotel room not knowing how
she got there. The last thing that she could remember was having drinks with
Ahmed the previous night.

She looked at her watch and realized that she as
running late and would miss her ferry.

Grabbing her belongings, she quickly
checked out of her room and ran to the port.

“Ticket
please!” the ticket inspector stopped her as she tried to rush to the boarding
area.

“I will miss the ferry, can I just get in?’ Maria
pleaded.

“I have to see your ticket before you can go to
the boarding area “he insisted.

Maria went through her purse looking for the
ticket. She couldn’t find it! She emptied her backpack but still couldn’t find
anything.

“You need to buy a ticket before you can get in”,
the inspector insisted.

Her heart was racing. She had the ticket the day
before. However, there was no time to start looking for it then and so she
decided to buy another one.

Going through her purse, she realized that her
wallet and phone were also missing.

Suddenly, she heard the final horn being
blown and watched in dismay as the ferry left the dock. That was her only means
out of Zanzibar.

Maria assumed that she must have forgotten some
of her things at the hotel in the morning rush. Dejectedly, she left the port
and headed back to the hotel.

“I think I
forgot a few items in my room” she explained to the receptionist.

“Your room has cleaned, there was nothing there.”
he said. “Have you checked your bag?”

“Of course I have!” Maria yelled feeling frustrated.

“Calm down Maria, I am trying to help.”

“No, I only had my phone and a little money.”
Maria said when he suggested that she might have lost her ticket at the club.

“Who was on duty here last night?” She thought
that someone might have seen her coming in. If Ahmed had robbed her then someone
might have seen him.

“I was the one here; remember I opened the door
for you?”

“Was anyone else with me?”

“Of course not” he added tiredly.

Helplessly, she went and sat outside the hotel
wondering what to do. There was no Kenyan embassy on the island; the nearest
one was the mainland at Dar es Salaam.

“Maria, you are still around!”

It was Ahmed, her only friend on the island!

“What happened last night? She desperately asked.

“We left the club at 3:00am and you came back to
your hotel” he quickly filled her in.

Maria explained the events of the morning and the
fact that she couldn’t remember much from the previous night. Ahmed was equally
perplexed.

“I don’t have any money, I can’t help you”

“Can you get someone to buy me a ticket to the
mainland; I can go to the embassy at Dar es Salaam and get help from there”, She
pleaded desperately.

“I think I know someone who can help you.”

Ahmed took her to a house off the island where they
found a man seated in an office behind a mahogany desk busy with paperwork.
Everything in that office screamed of power and affluence.

The man was dressed in white. His robe had
golden embroidery and so did his head scarf. He also had a huge white beard
like most Arab men on the island.

“So how can I help you Ahmed?” he asked.

“This is
my friend Maria from Kenya”, Ahmed explained to the man her predicament as he
listened without interrupting.

“So how can I help you, my Kenyan friend?” he
asked now looking at Maria

.

“I need
money to buy a ticket to Dar es Salaam so that I can go to the embassy”, Maria
explained.

“I will help you my friend…..actually, I will pay
for your tickets all the way to Kenya” he said.

Maria sighed in relief; she was going back home!

“Thank you Sir...”

“Call me Abdullah, we are now friends.”

“I will need you to do me a small favor though;
you will travel with my two friends to Nairobi where I have arranged for
someone to pick them.”

Maria thought that was a small price to pay and
so agreed quickly. Abdullah then arranged to have her travel on the next day.

In the morning, she was introduced to a man and
woman who were her travel companions.They
spoke in Arabic and Maria discovered that they didn’t know a word of Kiswahili
or English.

“I have asked them to pretend to be deaf and dumb
so that nobody asks about their language issue”, Abdullah explained much to the
confusion of Maria.

“If anyone asks, say that you are all Kenyans and
had travelled together”, again Maria wondered what was going on.

“We have even given them nice Kenyan names; they
are Musa and Rehema, nice...eh?” he added before cautioning her, “Do not let
the immigrations officials inspect their documents.”

“Is this illegal?”She hesitantly asked.

“Of course
not, they just need to get to Kenya, they need help crossing the border because
the language barrier”, he added smiling.

Maria had her doubts but there was no much time for
second thoughts. Soon, the trio made their way to the port where they once
again met the ticket inspector. She showed him all their tickets and headed to
the immigration desk.

She first handed over her passport which was quickly
stamped. When she handed over Rehema’s passport, the immigration officer seemed
to take forever with it. He started looking at it from page to page.

“What were
you doing in Zanzibar?”

“We were on vacation”, Maria quickly answered.

“I am asking her,” he said as he pointed at Rehema.

“She is deaf”, again Maria volunteered.

“M-A-D-A-M…eh?” he called out to Rehema speaking
very slowly and loudly.

“She still can’t hear you and she can’t read lips.”
Maria said hoping to end the interrogation.

She sighed with relief as she saw him stamp the
two passports.

They reached the mainland and luckily had no
issue getting the Dar es Salaam to Nairobi bus. They just had to buy the
tickets.

It was 6:00pm when they finally arrived at the
border.

“Kenyans here, all non-Kenyans there”, the
immigration officer shouted as he pointed at different queues.

The trio got in line with the other Kenyans.

“You two, I said non-Kenyans should stand over
there, you are in the wrong queue!”

Maria realized that the officer was referring to
Musa and Rehema.

“We are all Kenyans, from the North-Rift,
Boranas”, She quickly explained, knowing that she was talking too fast and
giving unnecessary details.

The officer looked at them for a while and walked
away after he added, “They look like Somalis!”

Those words shock waves through Maria’s body.
Musa and Rehema did look like Somalis. She hadn’t thought of it but then it
made sense! They didn’t speak any Swahili like everyone else in Zanzibar! Their
appearance was also quite different.

The Kenyan government was very strict about
illegal immigrants. Culprits were deported or imprisoned. The smugglers faced
up to twenty years in jail. She thought of abandoning them and running away but
then again everyone had already seen them together and she still had to get her
passport stamped.

“NEXT!” the immigration officer shouted glaring
at her. She hadn’t even realized that she was holding up the queue.

She gave him the three passports but to her
surprise, they were all stamped and returned to her, no questions asked.

Maria couldn’t wait to get to Nairobi and get rid
of her two companions now turned contraband. She had so many questions about
Ahmed, Abdullah and the Somalis. She started wondering if all was happening was
just a coincidence. Her lost phone, tickets and money, meeting Ahmed and then
Abdullah who just happened to have two immigrants who needed to travel to Kenya;
it had to be a set up!

Once in Nairobi, she rushed to the rendezvous as
Abdullah had mentioned where a man called Mawe met her.

“I have a long way to go” Maria pleaded refusing
to sit down.

“Oh yeah, you are going all the way to Limuru.”

Maria was stunned. How did he know where she
lived?

He reached into his pocket and handed her an
envelope and a phone.

“This is your payment, always keep that phone on,
we will notify you of your next assignment.”

She was dumfounded. Payment? Next assignment?

“I am sorry there must be a mistake, Abdullah
told me to bring these two here and that was it.”

Mawe burst out in a maniac laugh.

“Don’t be naïve Maria, do you know who these
people are?” he asked.

“This is Wariahe Marda and his wife.”

The name sounded familiar but she couldn’t place
it.

“They are wanted for crimes against humanity in
Somalia and are now international fugitives. You have just brought them to
Kenya so you can’t just run away from this”, he added coldly.

“Just go home, enjoy your money and I will call
you for your next assignment.”

Maria silently picked the phone and the envelope
which was quite heavy and left. That was not how she had expected her vacation
to go. In just a week she had turned from a tourist to joining an underworld of
smugglers.